Over the past 100 years, antibiotics have drastically changed modern medicine. “The introduction of antibiotics into clinical use was arguably the greatest medical breakthrough of the 20th century”. Alongside phages also evolved and so did phage therapy. In the last decade, phage therapy has gained recognition alongside antibiotics. Sometimes as an alternative to antibiotics, and sometimes in combination with antibiotics.
The question remains how positive and receptive is modern society to phage applications and how conscious is society about phages? A recent study was conducted by the Phage Therapy Unit(PTU), Hirszfeld Institute of Immunology and Experimental Therapy, Polish Academy of Sciences, Wrocław, Poland. The study assessed general perception through a questionnaire for social research by the PTU conducted from the year 2022-2023. This public survey was a first of its kind in Poland and consisted of about 70 questions with over 1000 participants ranging from laymen to the healthcare sector, and a few from the research and scientific sector.
The PTU says “Our goal was to examine the real level of understanding in the subject of phage therapy, given the public exposure to social media. With the consent of the participants, publicly available contact details were fetched and the questionnaires were distributed through webmail, stating the sole purpose of this survey. “The study population was screened three times. The first step was to agree to participate in the survey. The second stage was the completion of the entire questionnaire and the third stage was to agree to take part in the quiz”.
So far, phage therapy in the European Union, including Poland is conducted solely on an experimental basis, however, the number of clinical trials involving bacteriophages is constantly growing. It was analyzed that many participants were aware of the growing antimicrobial resistance, especially from the healthcare sector. Very few were aware of phage term and phage therapy which was influenced by their level of education. “Knowledge about the existence of PTU in Wrocław (Poland), the first ethically approved phage therapy center in the EU, is rather low.” However, many showed a willingness to undergo phage therapy in case of antibiotic failure. Predesignated parameters were taken into consideration in framing this study and in doing the statistical analysis of the results.
All in all, with the rising antimicrobial resistance, an alternate approach is crucial. With the ongoing phage research, an increasing number of scientific publications, phage laboratories set up, rising awareness amongst phage enthusiasts, and the many positive stories of patient cases, phage therapy, and phage research are going to be futuristic approaches. The scientific community is also expected to spread their awareness of phage research amongst laymen and phage therapy is promised to move from a compassionate basis to a compulsory approach soon.
The link to the study https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/public-health/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2025.1490737/ful
